Singing with yourself: Evidence for an inverse modeling account of poor-pitch singing

Pfordresher, Peter Q.; Mantell, James T.

doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2013.12.005

Cited by 43 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…A recent study documented a similar bias toward anticipating the beat in poor-pitch singers (Dalla Bella, Berkowska, & Sowiński, 2015). This finding is in keeping with theories pointing to differences in auditory-motor translation to account for individual differences in singing proficiency (e.g., in imitation tasks; Hutchins & Peretz, 2012;Pfordresher & Brown, 2007;Pfordresher & Mantell, 2014). In sum, there is preliminary evidence that the results obtained with BAASTA, in particular in paced tapping, may act as indicators of particular timing/rhythm deficits, which may span across different disorders.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 72%

BAASTA: Battery for the Assessment of Auditory Sensorimotor and Timing Abilities

et al. 2016

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The Battery for the Assessment of Auditory Sensorimotor and Timing Abilities (BAASTA) is a new tool for the systematic assessment of perceptual and sensorimotor timing skills. It spans a broad range of timing skills aimed at differentiating individual timing profiles. BAASTA consists of sensitive time perception and production tasks. Perceptual tasks include duration discrimination, anisochrony detection (with tones and music), and a version of the Beat Alignment Task. Perceptual thresholds for duration discrimination and anisochrony detection are estimated with a maximum likelihood procedure (MLP) algorithm. Production tasks use finger tapping and include unpaced and paced tapping (with tones and music), synchronization-continuation, and adaptive tapping to a sequence with a tempo change. BAASTA was tested in a proof-of-concept study with 20 non-musicians (Experiment 1). To validate the results of the MLP procedure, less widespread than standard staircase methods, three perceptual tasks of the battery (duration discrimination, anisochrony detection with tones, and with music) were further tested in a second group of non-musicians using 2 down / 1 up and 3 down / 1 up staircase paradigms (n = 24) (Experiment 2). The results show that the timing profiles provided by BAASTA allow to detect cases of timing/rhythm disorders. In addition, perceptual thresholds yielded by the MLP algorithm, although generally comparable to the results provided by standard staircase, tend to be slightly lower. In sum, BAASTA provides a comprehensive battery to test perceptual and sensorimotor timing skills, and to detect timing/rhythm deficits.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 72%

BAASTA: Battery for the Assessment of Auditory Sensorimotor and Timing Abilities

et al. 2016

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“…Indeed, even when wildly out of tune, singers preserve the general contour of a melody (Pfordresher & Mantell, 2014). The importance of contour is also evidenced by its early emergence -infants as young as 5 months differentiate melodies primarily on the basis of their contour (for a review, see Trehub & Hannon, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contributions of pitch contour, tonality, rhythm, and meter to melodic similarity.

Prince

2014

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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The identity of a given melody resides in its sequence of pitches and durations, both of which exhibit surface details as well as structural properties. For the purposes of this research, pitch contour (pattern of ups and downs) served as pitch surface information, and tonality (musical key) as pitch structure; in the temporal dimension, surface information was the ordinal duration ratios of adjacent notes (rhythm), and metre (beat, or pulse) comprised the structure.Manipulating factorially the preservation or alteration of all of these forms of information in 17 novel melodies (typifying Western music) enabled measuring their effect on perceived melodic similarity. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 34, varied musical training) rated the perceived similarity of melody pairs transposed to new starting pitches. Rhythm was the largest contributor to perceived similarity, then contour, metre, and tonality. Experiment 2 used the same melodies but varied the tempo within a pair, and added a prefix of three chords, which oriented the listener to the starting pitch and tempo before the melody began. Now contour was the strongest influence on similarity ratings, followed by tonality, and then rhythm; metre was not significant. Overall, surface features influenced perceived similarity more than structural, but both had observable effects. The primary theoretical advances in melodic similarity research are that (1) the relative emphasis on pitch and temporal factors is flexible, (2) pitch and time functioned independently when manipulated factorially, regardless of which dimension is more influential, and (3) interactions between surface and structural information were unreliable and never occurred between dimensions.Running head: MELODIC SIMILARITY

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“…Similarly, poor-pitch singers, who exhibit a general deficit of vocal imitation, also exhibit an apparent lack of flexibility in vocal imitation (Pfordresher & Brown, 2007). Poor-pitch singers also show a larger advantage for matching pitch from recordings of their own voice, in contrast to matching the vocal pitch of other singers, than do more accurate singers (R. Moore et al, 2008;Pfordresher & Mantell, 2014). Finally, when transferring from the imitation of one sequence to another, poor-pitch singers show a greater tendency to perseverate the previously imitated pitch pattern than do more accurate singers (Wisniewski, Mantell, & Pfordresher, 2013).…”

Section: What Makes a Sound Imitatible?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If vocal imitation is viewed as vocal reenactment, however, then individuals can potentially imitate any sound. This includes their own vocalizations, a process referred to as self-imitation (Pfordresher & Mantell, 2014;Repp & Williams, 1987;Vallabha & Tuller, 2004).…”

Section: What Makes a Sound Imitatible?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Imitating Sounds: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding Vocal Imitation

Mercado¹,

Mantell²,

Pfordresher³

2014

CCBR

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Vocal imitation is often described as a specialized form of learning that facilitates social communication and that involves less cognitively sophisticated mechanisms than more "perceptually opaque" types of imitation. Here, we present an alternative perspective. Considering current evidence from adult mammals, we note that vocal imitation often does not lead to learning and can involve a wide range of cognitive processes. We further suggest that sound imitation capacities may have evolved in certain mammals, such as cetaceans and humans, to enhance both the perception of ongoing actions and the prediction of future events, rather than to facilitate mate attraction or the formation of social bonds. The ability of adults to voluntarily imitate sounds is better described as a cognitive skill than as a communicative learning mechanism. Sound imitation abilities are gradually acquired through practice and require the coordination of multiple perceptual-motor and cognitive mechanisms for representing and generating sounds. Understanding these mechanisms is critical to explaining why relatively few mammals are capable of flexibly imitating sounds, and why individuals vary in their ability to imitate sounds. Keywords: mimicry; copying; social learning; singing; emulation; imitatible; convergence; imitativenessIn his seminal text, Habitat and Instinct, Lloyd Morgan (1896, p. 166) describes two general kinds of imitation: instinctive imitation and intelligent or voluntary imitation. The examples he provides of intelligent imitation mostly involve reproducing sounds-a child copies words used by his companions, a mockingbird imitates the songs of 32 other bird species, a jay imitates the neighing of a horse, and so on. In fact, most of the examples of "imitation proper" that Morgan provides consist of birds reproducing the sounds of other species. Similarly, Romanes (1884) focuses almost exclusively on reports of birds imitating songs, music, and speech in his discussion of imitation. These classic portrayals of vocal reproductions as providing the best and clearest examples of imitation stand in stark contrast to current psychological discussions of imitation, which often classify examples such as those given by Romanes and Morgan as non-imitative performances that merely resemble actual imitation (Byrne, 2002;Heyes, 1996). When did phenomena that were once considered archetypal examples of voluntary imitation transform into a footnote of modern cognitive theories? Was some discovery made that fundamentally changed our scientific understanding of the processes underlying vocal imitation? Have psychologists or biologists succeeded in explaining what vocal imitation is and how it works to the point where little can be gained from further study? Or, have theoretical assumptions led scientists to underestimate the cognitive mechanisms required for an individual to be able to flexibly imitate sounds?In the present article, we attempt to identify what exactly vocal imitation entails, and to assess whether current explanatory fr...

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Singing with yourself: Evidence for an inverse modeling account of poor-pitch singing

Cited by 43 publications

References 30 publications

BAASTA: Battery for the Assessment of Auditory Sensorimotor and Timing Abilities

BAASTA: Battery for the Assessment of Auditory Sensorimotor and Timing Abilities

Contributions of pitch contour, tonality, rhythm, and meter to melodic similarity.

Imitating Sounds: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding Vocal Imitation

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